And interestingly enough, Fr. Raymond Gravel, the liberal priest who stood as an MP a couple of years ago, made an extremely aggressive attack on LifeSiteNews.com in the comments section of the article.
He titled it "Catholic Fanaticism".
I have translated his comments:
M. Leclerc, while reading your article this morning, it called to mind the painful events that I experienced during the time I was a federal MP because of Lifesitenews, which is made up of fundamentalists who call themselves Catholic, but whose statements are contrary to the Gospel. Unfortunately, these extremist Catholics have influence in Rome so that when my bishop received a letter from the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy which forced me to retire from political life, attached to it was a file almost exclusively in English made up of negative comments about me, denunciatory letters which came from those ultra-conservative media which have no fear of using lies and half-truths to discredit the bishops, priests,religious and devoted Christians that do not support Campaign Life Coalition, a movement founded in Toronto, but which has ramifications in Quebec and even in the United States.
When I heard a few weeks ago the dubious story that Development and Peace, a Catholic organization, was financing pro-choice organizations in favour of abortion in Mexico, I knew already that it consisted of a hypocritical tactic and a false report on the part of these fanatical pro-lifers, who do not benefit from the financial support of this organization nor the support of the bishops, and which uses all means to discredit these bishops and their charitable movement. And as proof, the editors of LifesiteNews are always trying to sow discord between the bishops themselves, by denouncing the statements made by Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte on abortion and on condom usage, by saying these statements, taken out of context, were contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. And the worst of it is that a good number of believers let themselves be influenced by these defamations and fund these extremists who claim to defend the Christian values of life, family and morality.
This is why that all Catholics from here and abroad, the most fervent and even those who’ve distanced themselves from the Church, come to the defense of our bishops and the organization Development and Peace. The policy of Development and Peace is to come to the aid of the poor people of the planet by supporting concrete projects that allow men, women and children to live in hope by finding their dignity. How can we be opposed to such generosity?
We must denounce LifeSiteNews and stop funding it. We can believe in life, defend it and promote it, without supporting these fanatics who call themselves Catholics, but who never stop judging, condemning and excluding all those who do not think like them. It is part of the Church’s credibility at its pastors to pursue its charitable mission in the world among the poor, exploited and completely destitute of the world.
I wonder what the Vatican has to say about all this. After all, they seemed to have been of the same opinion as Lifesite in regards to Fr. Gravel's foray into politics.
Lifesite is exposing the rot in the Church. Donations are obviously being put to good use.
I find it somewhat humourous that he's calling on Catholics reading the Devoir to stop funding Lifesite. The Devoir readership doesn't typically visit LifeSiteNews. Fr. Gravel is totally barking up the wrong tree. I bet whatever donations LifeSite loses in Quebec (and I'm willing to bet that would be about zero dollars) they could easily make up in soliciting donations from Americans.
So go ahead and rage Fr. Gravel. It's good publicity.
